


Driftwood

by Chaed



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, Casualties of the Revolution, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Psychotropic Drugs, Time in the Capitol, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-02-28 13:27:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2734292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaed/pseuds/Chaed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three are taken - by the Capitol. Three suffer - for the Rebellion. Three lose - all that they have. [Johanna, Peeta, Annie and the dark side of war]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Johanna

Four walls, a door and a leaking ceiling.

She thinks capture in the Capitol could be worse and laughs at herself for the naivety.

Xxx

After three days her stomach revolts. She's mentally prepared for interrogation. That they'll just leave her to starve catches her off-guard. Do they think she will trade secrets for food?

Xxx

When they come for the first time she's fierce. There's kicks and bites and scratches and she's proud of her silence.

Xxx

One eye is swollen shut. The throbbing in her head matches the dripping ceiling.

Still strong. She will never tell what she doesn't know.

Xxx

There's an air vent high up each wall. It's too small to fit through, she tried. And where would it get her, anyway? On the other side is only Peeta and sometimes they scream competitively.

Xxx

Leaves. How young and green they're in spring, so full of life. Their deep red tone in autumn, when they lay down to rest and crunch beneath her boots when she walks in the forest.

It must be autumn now, she's convinced. With all its lovely hues like the color of her bruises.

Xxx

They're not happy with anything she says.

Sarcasm comes hard once they start with the shocks.

Xxx

Annie Cresta joins the ranks of left-behinds. At night her cries are lullabies.

Xxx

Fingers shaking. Skin and bones. A fistful of hair.

And the smell. God, the smell is unbearable. Charred flesh.

Tears come and she curls up against the pain.

The ceiling drips.

She's so hungry.

What do secrets taste like?

Xxx

She worries when Peeta stops screaming and wonders if his throat is as raw as hers.

Xxx

Her body gets used to electricity. Blissful unconsciousness comes a lot faster than in the beginning.

Only the sound of dripping water follows her into the dark.

Xxx

Their newest invention; The Box. A ventilation hole is her only connection to the outside. She can stick her hand through. When it's not beaten back, she imagines a ray of light reaching the tips of her fingers. She wants to think about Seven, about home, but all the warmth really does is remind her that she'll never see a tree again.

Xxx

When they turn the water on it's like acid. Boiling. Freezing. She can't decide which hurts more.

They promise to stop it if she talks.

She would, at this point, really. But don't they understand that she can't speak while drowning?

Xxx

They never turn it off completely. It bores holes in her skin. Eats away at her sanity as it echoes off her metal coffin.

She wants to make a last stand, a final rebellion. Johanna Mason is going to die with a purpose, leaving a message.

Xxx

Then the thirst comes. Like an avalanche it shatters what little resolve she has. When they turn on the water she licks her skin for every drop and begs for more, even though it burns all the way down to her heart.

Xxx

At one point the hunger just stops.

Xxx

It's their final try. While she's panting from the latest soaking they rig The Box and someone turns on the power.

She's jolted from one wall into another and there's electricity everywhere she touches. She convulses so hard that she froths at the mouth and the blood comes bubbling out her nose and her chest cramps up and the water and wont they stop her heartteethcracktheagony tearscan'tbreatheseven.isssSILENT

Xxx

Lightning cracks even the strongest tree.

Xxx

Her lips touch the ventilation hole of the Box. The trembling is so bad now, she can't control her movements. Her teeth hit the metal as she tries to coordinate spasming muscles.

It's a moan at first, then a croak and it takes several attempts until it is a word. The voice that says it is so alien to her, she almost doesn't recognize it.

It's less of a defeat, that way.

Xxx

“...pl..ea..se...”

Xxx

Like driftwood in the ocean, never reaching the shore and unable to drown.

Xxx

On the day after it's too late the Capitol is invaded by rebel forces. Three prisoners are freed and taken back to District 13. It's a feast. Spurs on the rebellion. People rejoice. Three cannot.

One without sanity. 4.

One without memories. 12.

One without secrets. 7.

All broken.


	2. Chapter 2

For Annie Cresta the rebellion comes knocking at her door.

Treason is its name and would she please come along.

\---

Bright lights; harsh voices blare through the speakers.

"Where is Finnick Odair?"

"I don't know."

"Where is Finnick Odair?"

"I told you-"

Wrong answer.

\---

Two guards, towering like cliffs, keep her still.

"Tell me about Thirteen." The question's not for her.

In the corner of the room Johanna Mason is silent, all blood and beatings, and her lips don't say _'Close your eyes, Annie, and think of the sea'_.

"Start talking, or else..." A knife glints at the edge of her vision.

Johanna says nothing about Thirteen and Annie learns to scream.

\---

Through the vent Peeta Mellark asks, "And who are you?"

She says,"I'm Annie Cresta," and starts sobbing, because she'd rather be anyone else in the world than a crazy girl in the Capitol.

"Don't cry, don't cry," drawls Peeta from the cell-next-door. "You can't die from tears, so please don't try."

\---

If Finnick is still alive, she's convinced he'll come for her. Any minute now, he'll come.

\---

"Please don't please don't please don't nonononono"

Pinned against the ground, the stink of sweat, skin on skin.

"Don't you fucking touch her!" Johanna shrieks, wails, fights for both of them. "Get _off_ her you sick shit! I'm gonna fu-"

"Names!"

"Let her go!" Buzz and Johanna sparks up.

"Where is Katniss Everdeen?"

Tongue to her ear. Hot breath down her neck. Where is Finnick, Finnick, Finnick?

"I don't know I don't know!" squeals Johanna, raw and sore and cooked by wires. "Just _cover her up_ , godssake, let her be..."

They return her to her cell, all sullied and broken and humiliated.

\---

The sea, the deep blue sea. Hush! Hush! Hush! And down she goes.

\---

Annie counts the walls, one two three four, until she finds a pace that goes with the screams next door.

\---

"Do you know who she is?" asks Peeta.

"Who?" The only 'shes' are Johanna and herself and he knows them by their cries all too well.

"That girl. That fire-girl."

"Oh." Of course. "You mean the mockingjay."

"No. No bird. She's a girl." There's hesitation in his voice. "Arcane and stunning and swallowed up by flames."

\---

[Tape 59, 1:43]

[male voice] "Did you know about the rebellion?"

[female voice] "Yes."

[male voice] "Where is Finnick Odair?"

[female voice] "In District Thirteen."

[male voice] "Please state your name for the records."

(silence, then whimpering) [female voice] "Anyone! Anyone you want, just tell me who to be I'll be whoever, just say the answer, I don't know the right answer..."

(sigh) [male voice] "Just say 'My name is Annie Cresta.'"

[female voice] "Alright. I can do that."

[male voice] "Please state your name for the records."

(murmur) [female voice] "I was her for so long, I wouldn't mind continuing to be her for just a little while more."

[male voice] "Miss Cresta."

[female voice] "Yes?"

[male voice] "We'll do this again. Where is Finnick Odair?"

[female voice] "They reaped him for the Quarter Quell."

[male voice] "No. Where is he _now?"_

[female voice] "They reaped me too, you know."

(resignation) [male voice] "Tom, this one's round the bend. Been going this way for the last three days. Best keep trying with Mason."

[female voice] "Excuse me? I'm ready now."

[male voice] "What?"

[female voice] "I'm ready. Will you sound the cannon, please?"

\---

Mags gone. Finnick gone. Annie gone. Keep swimming, keep swimming and out-drown them all.

\---

Three dead mice  
paying the price,  
for a handful of berries  
and a bird chirping lies.


	3. Chapter 3

He knew a girl once.

Tantalizing.

She put her fiery mark on him.

***

"What happened?! Where's Katniss?"

Johanna's hunched over Brutus' unmoving frame, axe to the side, all grisly and climatic for the cameras.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" she barks, like he just caught her dirty-handed. "Why aren't you with Finnick?"

 _He's a traitor_ , Peeta's about to warn when the world catches fire. Johanna delights in it like a child mesmerized by a particularly dazzling sunset.

"Take a good look. It's the last time you'll ever see the sky."

But he only sees the metal claw, brute and unrelenting, pulling them down, down down.

***

"I don't know anything!" he pleads in vain, to one ruthless set of eyes and then the next.

Lined up like vultures they sit before him, his own personal cometee of death.

How dare he, after all the Capitol has done for him, betray his well-doers so blatantly and unashamed?

Why was he not content on living off the riches bestowed upon him and instead partook willingly in such a tasteless act of defiance?

The mere insinuation of of revolting against the good-minded, decent Capitol citizens -- a treachery in itself!

"But I wasn't part of it!" he tells them, by now afraid of the whip. And: "I only wanted to keep her safe!"

They take his plea for innocence and merely add it to the mounting evidence portraying him as chief instigator of this blasphemic schism.

***

Of all three victors, Peeta is the only one granted an audience by Coriolanus Snow. The vice-like grip on his arms is the only thing that keeps him standing. The fake leg is gone. The good one -- on its way.

"A game that carries across half a century wears out its players," he is lectured, but can really only focus on the pain in his side. "Everyone squirms for an end; we here in the Capitol and Thirteen in its warren."

A solemn appeal to his conscience.

"No price is too great for the scalp of the enemy King," says President Snow from the gaming table that is Panem.

"But of course, it is better to sacrifice your opponent's men if you can arrange it."

***

He strikes a deal with the devil for a girl he'll soon forget.

It's sealed with a toast. Tracker-jacker shooter, downed in one.

***

They make him relive the past in a way he can't remember it has happened.

Katniss, poisoning him with dark purple berries.

Katniss, kissing him goodnight like a life-long lover.

Katniss, starving, on a bleak November afternoon.

Katniss in the arena.

In the Capitol.

In his head.

***

Everything comes down to the girl from the Seam.

A friend.

A foe.

A fiery girl.

An old flame.

A creature born from embers, blazing everything in its wake.

***

He loves her.

He hates her.

He despises himself for being so helpless against the brilliance of the Capitol.

***

Annie sings of the far-away sea on nights she still has a voice.

Johanna admits she fails to remember the color of the moon.

They're two candles about to smother and he wishes for nothing more than to join them.

But his own flame burns brightly and it scorches him from the inside out.

***

He becomes their abulic puppet. Continually drugged, unable to keep fantasy from reality, broken in a way the vultures with their physical abuse could never have attained.

He finds himself begging for the end.

By their hands, by Katniss', by his own.

He'd take freedom any way it comes.

***

And then it does, just so.

***

He knew a girl once. He remembers her.

Devastating.

He can't let her burn him twice.


End file.
